Posted in: Comics, Dynamite | Tagged: Bettie Page, dynamite, karla pacheco

Karla Pacheco and Vincenzo Federici Bring Back Alternate History Bettie Page

Published Fri, 13 Mar 2020 11:59:21 -0500

Pornhub may be making their premium service free to Italians, but Dynamite has their own Italian cure to coronavirus blues with a new Bettie Page comic book series in June. With Spider-Woman writer Karla Pacheco is joined by Italian artist Vincenzo Federici, with colourist Rebecca Nalty and letterer Becca Carey. With a new alternate history twist making her a true Hollywood star in the making – and suspect to a murder.

In this series, Bettie has moved from New York to Hollywood sometime around 1954. She's transitioned into more minor acting working, with theater success and bit parts in B-movies. Though she's still challenged navigating the sticky swamp of producers, perps, pumps, and pushers who call La La Land home and want a piece of the pie – and Bettie. The question is – does Bettie Page find trouble, or does trouble find her? Signing on for a supporting role in a "tastefully sensual" fantasy film set on an idyllic tropical island, until someone is murdered and a massive storm hits.

This new series weaves together inspiration from Hammett and Chandler novels, vintage "LOOK" magazines, episodes of Murder She Wrote, Hollywood gossip rags and Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke's Catwoman.

"Bettie Page has always been a huge idol for me. Not just for her iconic style, but the way she brought such a sense of joy and delight to her performances and sensuality," said writer Karla Pacheco. "We're taking Bettie Page's amazing spirit, and imagining a timeline where she was finally given the chance to reach her full potential as a star – even though it's far from smooth sailing! We've got twists, turns, secrets and lies – the whole shebang! Plus we have Vincenzo, Rebecca and Becca all coming together to create a drop-dead gorgeous, colorful dream of a book! It's brassy, bold, (frequently criminal) fun, and I think it's going to be a really exciting adventure for both readers and "our" Bettie."

Artist Vincenzo Federici added, "Being on this book is simply… incredible! When I was a teen, I totally fell in love with Bettie as an icon. Now I have the opportunity to work on her stories and with Karla, one of the coolest writers in the industry! I know it will be a challenge because we have a lot of characters and maybe a lot of elephants (Karla says!), but I'm taking inspiration from my idol Alan Davis, a master in stories full of characters. It's super fun – guaranteed!"

"I'm extremely excited to join on this new adventure with Bettie," said colorist Rebecca Nalty. "She's had a major influence on pop culture for decades, but it's in both her image of pure, confident sexuality and the reality of her real life personal struggles where I think the world found our love for this woman who broke all the rules to be herself."

With variant covers from Junggeun Yoon, Kano, Joseph Michael Linsner, Riki Le Cotey, Stephen Mooney and photo cover variants.